


three instances

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They get together, grow up, grow apart, and grow to be better people. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a. watch that first step

Drew wasn't the kind of person to burn hot and fast. He was slow, careful, gave himself time enough for everything he attempted. If anyone had asked him, he'd have said he was probably the kind of guy who tended to fall for his best friend, because that was one person he was already used to, didn't need to explore from completely anew. Creature of habit, and all that.

It was why it was such a surprise for him to find himself with a fire in his belly that made his cheeks flush, that first time he saw Johnny Weir. He'd never felt that way, ever. It had always been a trickle of affection before, a slow, bubbling little river; the sudden passion threw him for a loop.

Drew, thrown for a loop, did what Drew did best - he got even quieter. He was a shy person by default, very controlled, disciplined - it was what Julia's dad liked so much about him, and he was a little proud himself for being his age and so mature already that adults took him for one of them. He knew a lot of other nineteen-year-olds who got treated like kids because of their behavior. He had to admit he would have found that annoying too, if he had been in their shoes.

It was at a party, the second sighting. Needless to say, Drew liked parties okay when they were civilized. This one was shaping up to become one of those disaster parties where everyone threw their drinks back up and/or had kinky sex in the host's parents' bedroom. He would have pitied poor Carmen for the clean-up that was waiting for her tomorrow, if he hadn't known she'd be the first to land on said bed.

He shook his head at someone who held a tray of vodka shots under his nose and pushed them away, out of his line of sight. The chair he was sitting on was rather comfortable, in a corner by a little desk he could put his virgin drink on whenever he was not sipping. The music wasn't screaming quite as loudly into his ear here as it had been in the other room which he'd left half an hour before. He could even pretend to be high when someone bothered him; that usually made them go away. Some of the others had opened a circle on the carpet and were spinning a bottle, a lot of giggles and then two girls crawled towards each other and started making out in the center. Someone was counting the seconds out loud.

Drew snorted.

"Not to your liking?" someone drawled beside him and he half-jumped, lucky enough not to spill the content of his glass all over his lap.

"Uh," he mumbled, frowning and looked up at the person leaning back against the desk. "Nah, It's quite silly. They could just pair up and have at it, it'd make as much sense and spare them the trouble of playing."

Johnny Weir had a very nice grin. "It's about making out with as many as you can get away with. And most of them are probably a bit afraid to ask someone of the same sex - if it's the game, it's chance who gets picked. If they did as you say... there would be choice involved. Too risky."

"You don't sound drunk," Drew commented idly, playing with the little umbrella on his glass.

"I plan not to, today." Johnny shrugged. "I'm trying to find someone I can pick up. Plenty of rooms upstairs in the house to spend the night, and nobody'll notice. 's a chance to have a good time. I like to be sober for that."

"Oh." Drew could feel himself blush. His heart was beating in his chest like a timbrel, du-dumm, du-dumm, du-dumm, du-dumm, along with the rattling of teeth as he clenched his jaw to keep himself from asking who the lucky person would be.

"What'cha doing here, anyway?" Johnny interrupted his musing.

"How do you mean?"

"You look a bit misplaced."

"I'm having fun," Drew said reluctantly. "I'm watching people. Doing things. It's... fun." It had sounded more fun in his head. He clenched his fingers around the glass harder and bit his lip, not looking at Johnny.

"You're... you won Novice pairs this year, didn't you?"

Drew's chin jerked up, and so did his gaze. "You won Men's Seniors this year, didn't you?" He wasn't going to pretend he didn't know Johnny's name, as Johnny had apparently expected him to. He hated playing games. They were too complicated and manipulative and he never knew where he stood in the end. He liked for things to be clear and out in the open. That was just the kind of person he was.

"I didn't mean - sorry." Johnny shifted, uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to infer anything. It doesn't need to have anything to do with being here."

"I'd prefer it to stay unofficial," Drew said honestly, distracted by a few louder wolf whistles cheering on a girl who had just tumbled one of the younger boys to the ground. "I'm not here as a skater; Carmen invited me, we went to school together and I know her brother, we're friends. He's..." he looked around. "He's kind of vanished, though, a good while ago. Probably 'having fun'." He waited, expecting Johnny to leave on his own - when he didn't, Drew turned his head a bit towards him. "What about you?"

"A friend of a friend who knows the host - Carmen, you said? She's around somewhere. I'm visiting, I'm not from Boston. But since I have a few days here, I thought, why not? No chaperons, might as well do something naughty and inappropriate."

Drew couldn't help it. He snorted again.

"What?" Johnny asked, baffled. "What's so funny?"

"You. Sneaking around. You're twenty, right?"

"Yeah?"

"So, you can do whatever you want."

"Except drink."

Drew snorted again.

"And make drug references on TV, apparently."

"You made a drug reference on TV?"

Johnny shrugged, sheepish. "It slipped out. It happens. I have a smart mouth. I can't help it."

Drew glanced at said mouth and quickly away again. Admitting he was sorely tempted to make a risqué remark himself as a reply wouldn't do any good, he was pretty sure, so he kept it to himself and asked instead, "Got you in trouble?"

"A lil'," Johnny admitted, flushing himself. "It was just a joke. Officials are all so uptight." Then he straightened his shoulders. "But we didn't want to talk about the sport. Uh, we could talk about something else. We could go upstairs into one of the rooms and talk about something else. It would be quieter than here, too."

For a second, Drew was speechless, then it dawned on him what this whole conversation had been about and where it was leading. He felt really stupid for not catching on the moment Johnny had presented his intentions. And then, after the initial discomforting second, there was another second of ' _fucking hell, I really want to_ ' and images flickering before his eyes of the two of them lying out on the bed, fucking.

And then, the crazy left him, and he slouched a bit into himself, trying to vanish. "I'd rather not," he mumbled. At Johnny's dismayed face - hadn't nobody ever told the boy no? - he added, hastily, "it's not that - you - you're gorgeous and I'd love to, really, but - I don't do that. I'm not - I can't."

"Why?" Johnny's eyes were huge. "I don't understand. I'm not asking for anything. We can just... talk. And maybe make out some. And see where it goes. What's wrong with that?"

Drew shook his head. "It wouldn't work," he said, more decisive now. "Sorry. I just can't."

Someone behind Johnny cleared their throat. They both whirled in the direction, startled, and Drew recognized Ryan, standing there with his hands in his pant pockets, watching them.

"What's up?" Drew asked, rising from his seat in greeting. He swallowed, embarrassed to be caught out in this situation. "Your sister having fun with her party?"

Ryan smiled. "She's having a good time." Then he turned to Johnny, raising his eyebrows. "I guess you're outta luck," he smiled, friendly, open, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "He's genetically incapable of fucking without emotions getting in the way."

"Hey!" Drew protested. "How would you even -"

"- James?" Ryan held up his hand. "Timothy?"

"That's two!"

"Two's more than nothing, which is the number of times you've fucked without completely getting your heart cracked afterwards."

"I did not -"

Ryan sidled up to him and put his arm around his shoulder. "Pity, too, I'm first in line for when you learn, after all." He gave Drew a wet kiss to his cheek.

Drew glared at him and then gave Johnny a cautious little glance, scared of the reaction. But Johnny didn't look condescending. If anything, he looked surprised and a little at a loss. "I'm sorry," Drew repeated. "This idiot here likes to butt in on other people's business." He pushed Ryan off of him. "Oh, go bother someone else, would you? I thought I saw Lucas somewhere about the kitchen earlier -"

And that was enough to send Ryan off with a predatory little grin on his face.

"He's different," Johnny commented, relaxing a fraction, watching Ryan leave. Drew half-expected him to come out with some crack line like 'nice ass', but instead, Johnny just asked, "He's older, right?"

"Twenty-two," Drew shrugged. "'ve known him for years, he's all right."

"I didn't say he wasn't."

"Hm-hm." Drew nodded and slowly sat back down on his chair, grabbing his drink to give his hands something to do. "Maybe you should go after him. He's okay with fooling around with anything that's remotely good-looking. I swear, sometimes I catch him ogling poodles."

Johnny let out a whoop of laughter. "He doesn't!"

All Drew could offer was another shrug.

"Oh well. Not so much my type anyway."

"You have a type?"

Johnny smiled. "I have a rule. Only one joke-cracking drama queen in the relationship."

"Oh see, there's already a reason why we'd never work out. I do jokes."

The smile widened into a huge grin. "But then, with you, I'd make an exception."

"... I walked into that one, didn't I?" Drew shook his head, confused.

"No. I'm just that charming."

"'s what they all say. And then they drag you off into bed, fuck you up and leave you axed into little pieces of dead meat."

Johnny stared. "I weight a hundred pounds, there's no way that's physically possible for me."

"Like hell. Eighty of those are probably muscle. I'm a figure skater, too, remember?"

Johnny grinned. "Oh well." Then he sobered. "But if you don't want to go upstairs to talk and I really don't want to stay here -" he glanced at the riddle of bodies strewn across the floor, "- we could go grab a coffee at a nearby Starbucks and wait for sunrise there?"

For the length of a few blinks, Drew was sorely tempted to say no and end their acquaintance before it could really begin. He was tempted to give in to the pull of his drooping eyelids and say he needed to get home or find a room to sleep in - by himself - somewhere in the house. It was three am already, after all. But then, there were Johnny's hopeful, huge, green eyes, begging him to indulge, and the sexy little tilt of his hips against the desk that made his hipbones stand in sharp contrast to the waistband of his jeans, and Drew kind of admitted that if Johnny was for real - if this amazing, absolutely gorgeous guy was really trying to get to know him and maybe, just maybe interested in more than just a quick tumble between the sheets - that he wouldn't be able to say no for the world.

Two hours and four cups of coffee later, Drew found it increasingly hard to ignore the fact that he was completely and utterly whipped. And they hadn't even kissed yet.

 

~+~


	2. our lady of weekend minutes

There were some good times, too, admittedly.

There was the first kiss, warm and wet, stormy like a hurricane, and just as passionate, on Johnny's bed, lying side by side, fooling around. It was a little surprising, but then, Johnny liked to be surprising. He liked surprises, too, but more than that, he loved to share, loved to give out little presents and being cute while inviting Drew out for dinner out of the blue, bringing him single flowers from wherever he'd just been, or cheesy souvenirs.

Seeing him rarely didn't seem to matter at all, and the almost-daily phone calls made up for the days Drew came home from practice, exhausted and cranky and just wanted to hug so badly and Johnny wasn't there waiting for him. Instead, Johnny was somewhere across the world, competing, showing off his skills.

It wasn't so bad, really, because he knew Johnny was thinking about him, because there was almost always a text message with some dirty content that Drew deleted with burning cheeks or an email whenever there was no phone call. They were short, but important and very, very sweet. Of course, they didn't make up for the shine in Johnny's eyes that he was missing out on, but they were at least something. Drew had always been able to be satisfied with something.

 

~*~

 

It took Drew a while to get up his nerve to have sex. Johnny wasn't pushy and he certainly didn't seem to expect anything. He just waited, patiently, almost like he lacked hormones, which, Johnny assured him, wasn't true.

"I just jerk off twice as much as normal when I get home after spending time with you," he joked. "Cue dirty text message."

But then, sometimes Johnny was a bit less self-centered than he seemed, as it turned out, because that one time, a good month and a half into their relationship, he let Drew know that he was planning to take him out and that he wanted to spend a night in New York. He asked whether Drew wanted to come and if yes, that they could book a nice hotel and everything.

Of course, it was a tiny bit obvious what he was on about, but that didn't much matter because that was a good thing. Jumping him with it would have been bad - like this, Drew could take a few breaths and prepare himself and make sure everything was in order and that he didn't forget anything and then, they were there and it was just - planned. Safe. Comfort zone and everything.

"Thank you," he said afterwards, with Johnny curled around his body and his arms around Johnny's tiny waist and Johnny breathing warmly against his neck. "That was... nice."

"Hey," Johnny snorted, kissing his jaw before nibbling on it once. "It's not like it's just me - we're in this together, right? This isn't just me, on one side, and you on the other. Or is it?"

"No. No," Drew quickly said. "No, I like being together. With you." He just would have liked to be together more often. But he didn't say that, because he knew it'd just upset the evening and this was going so, so well.

"Great." Johnny smiled. "I like being with you too." There was something about his voice that made Drew almost uncomfortable of its intensity. "I like you a little lot, actually. A lot much. Maybe a bit too much. For... this soon. Okay?"

"Um." Drew drew in a breath, glad of the darkness around them.

"You don't have to say anything," Johnny corrected himself quickly. "I didn't mean to push. I just - I know sometimes these things, they get tangled up and I wanted to make sure you know that this isn't just something to help me over to the next person or whatever."

"I figured." Drew smiled, relaxing. "You're very special to me, too, Johnny."

They didn't talk much after that, kissed more, fell asleep, woke up early, still entangled and had sex again, fast and hard this time, just a bit on the wild side, and Drew wasn't sure he liked it at first, but Johnny loved it, and Johnny had a way of making people see things from his point of view. When Drew fell asleep afterwards a second time, breathless, panting harshly, sweat covering his body, he considered what it would be like to have this all the time. For the rest of his life. He considered that it wouldn't be half bad.

 

~*~

 

And still, after months of unexpectedness, Drew was surprised at the intensity, the sudden passion, the twirl of excitement in his belly, whenever he saw Johnny's smile, heard his voice, cheeky remarks whipping through the crowds, whenever Johnny hooked his thumbs in his jeans, or pulled Drew close and smacked a kiss on the lips, opening up underneath and letting Drew in, completely.

It was a little frightening. Drew knew he was lost - Ryan hadn't been lying, Drew was genetically incapable of sleeping with a person and then not be in love afterwards - but the fact that Johnny was in this too, with all his heart and soul, a mere few months after their very first meeting, it scared him, it made him constantly look behind himself to check if there was still an exit somewhere in sight.

Drew wasn't commitment phobic, he wasn't. Just because two guys had - on one level or another - dared to break his heart, long before all this, didn't mean he was unable to believe in a lasting relationship. He was fine with long-term relationships. He was just a bit scared about the strength of feeling with which Johnny immersed himself in it, the pure enthusiasm and love he brought with him, almost like an ocean wave crashing down and taking everything with it that wasn't settled deep in the ground. Drew didn't believe in such exuberance. He didn't believe anyone could be this swept off his feet, by anything.

Johnny proved him wrong every time his face lit up when their gazes met.

 

~*~

 

2005 was a harder year. Drew wasn't the kind of person to get competitive - when he lost to someone, he pulled back, got quieter, tried to analyze in his head what had gone wrong, how to do better next time. Johnny didn't understand. Johnny liked to complain when something went wrong. It made Drew pissy and annoyed and he didn't like to be a bitch, so he pulled back even more and Johnny didn't understand.

It was frustrating, but they let it go, in the end.

Johnny came over to apologize a few weeks after his fourth place at Worlds - "I didn't mean to upset you, I know you were angry about only placing ninth and getting silver at Nats...!"

Drew took a deep breath to tell him that it hadn't been about the skating, that it had been about the fact that Johnny hadn't seen that he needed to think instead of talk; but then he let it slide, because that was just the way he was. Instead, he pulled Johnny close and kissed him, deeply, a bit unexpected - "See? I can still surprise you!" and said, "I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean to make you think I was shutting you out."

 

~*~

 

The summer would have been nice, with Johnny closer to Boston, and he should have been able to visit more, but Drew found himself quickly disappointed. Johnny was busy preparing for the Olympics and Drew understood that that was important; but sometimes, when he was sitting by the phone in the evenings, eating dinner in front of the TV, he thought about how he'd have liked to be a bit more important, too.

 

~*~

 

"It's paying off," Johnny said, cheeks glowing with happiness and radiating a joy that was hard to ignore. "I'm training all the time, I know, but I'm winning! I keep winning and it feels... it feels so great!"

Drew smiled and opened his arms, had Johnny tumble him backwards into the couch. "I missed you," he said softly, ignoring the triumphant note in Johnny's voice.

"I missed you too," Johnny agreed, kissing him, furious, disheveled, out of control. "I won almost everything, except Cup of Russia, and now Nationals coming up and I feel like I'm completely going to win that too!"

Drew kissed him again - there was a time for figure skating, he thought; but that wasn't the first hour they were finally seeing each other again after a good month of not seeing each other at all.

Johnny kissed back, thoroughly, then broke the kiss. "I think Lysacek's firing up to claim the title, though, I'll have to train extra hard to -"

"- Johnny?"

"What?"

"I was wondering. You know. Since I obviously still have the figure skater. Can I have some time with Johnny the boyfriend now?"

Johnny squinted. "I vaguely remember telling you to leave the sarcasm to the professionals?"

"And I remember telling you that I'm not stopping to crack jokes just so you can feel like the king of jokes around here." Drew smiled.

"Sorry."

Drew sat up a bit, forcing Johnny to climb off him, and rubbed his forehead. "How are you?" he finally asked, the only thing he could think of that would stop the conversation from deteriorating.

"I'm great." And he was. Beaming. Happy. There was that breeze around him, like he was constantly vibrating, flickering in and out of sight. Drew watched him for a few moments, silent, and thought that it was a fitting description. Sometimes, he had the feeling like he was very, very arrogant to think that he should be allowed to see Johnny all the time - or call him his own, forever.

There was no keeping Johnny Weir, and he was starting to taste the truth of that quite bitterly.

"You know I love you, right?" Drew finally said, a last resort - he'd never said it before, in almost two years, not once - he didn't need to.

Or, he then admitted inwardly, ashamed - because Drew knew his own heart a bit too well sometimes - maybe he hadn't said it because he had been waiting for the day when he would realize that there was no force in the world that could enable him to bind a person like Johnny to himself.

Johnny was staring at him open-mouthed, then his smile grew huge, bigger than ever before, and his eyes glazed, like sun breaking over ice crystals, and he said, "Oh," and then, he didn't say anything but little moans of pleasure for a long, long time.

Drew thought it was a bit pathetic that this was the only way he could actually compete with figure skating and keep Johnny's mind off it, but then, he wasn't lying. He didn't think he would ever love anything in this world more than the boy he was holding in his arms and making love to.

 

~*~

 

There were the good times, too, but mostly, after the Olympics, there were the bad times.

People changed, Drew wasn't foolish to think it didn't happen.

Drew hadn't changed, maybe, not really, not deep inside, but then, Drew had been, two years ago, quite grown-up already. He'd been there, mature and ready to take on the adult world, with his quiet, gentle demeanor and need for safety and comfort.

"I never said," he mumbled into Johnny's hair, another night of silent tears burnt in his shirt. Fucking figure skating. He loved the sport, but sometimes, there was nothing he hated more in the world. "I never said," he admitted, and added, "because I thought it would be all right. Did you never notice how much you changed? It's been only two years..."

"I didn't," Johnny said with a sniff and rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. "I didn't change. I'm still me. I'm still the me you love, right?"

"Yeah." Drew kissed his forehead and entwined their fingers, taking a deep breath. "I still love you."

And Johnny murmured, "I love you too," - but it was hard to believe, really, when he was staring at the sharp blades of the skates in the corner of his boy-room while he said it.

 

~*~

 

And at long last...

 

"I can't do this anymore."

Very unreal, in a way, and how often had he heard/read/seen people say it?

And yet, it strangely hurt, it broke Drew inside to say this, but he couldn't _not_ say it. Johnny wasn't even calling anymore. He was just going through the motions, months now of silent crying and breaking apart and the only thing holding him together, Drew clinging to him and loving him like the world might end the next day, or the day after that.

"What?" Johnny was blinking, and for once, there were no tears. For once, his beautiful green eyes were clear and shocked to hell and back.

"You have to do this on your fucking own," Drew snapped, irritation clear in his voice now, because hurt was too painful anymore, and anger - well, anger at least didn't make him think of ice, hot as it was. "You can't just come here whenever you feel like someone needs to put you together. You're using me, and I'm not that person, Johnny. You come apart, you need a distraction, you need to whine and let it all off your chest - guess what, I'm good enough for you. But you don't even bother to call anymore to talk to _me_. When was the last time we've been out of that wretched town and somewhere just the two of us, spending a day not talking about fucking figure skating?"

Johnny stared, open-mouthed, and then he was up, and suddenly, the fire in his eyes was back. "You're jealous," he accused, painfully true, and Drew knew all too well that Johnny was more perceptive than anyone guessed (least of all Johnny himself). "Your season's sucked even more than mine and you're just jealous."

Drew snorted. "No sweet-talking, I see. Good choice."

"Shut up."

"I've been shut up for a long time now, didn't you notice? No. No, you probably didn't."

"You're always quiet. You're never sharing what you think. What else is new?" Johnny stared at him.

"You never ask," Drew shrugged. "You're not really interested. But it's not about that anyway, is it."

"No." Johnny shook his head. "No, it's not."

"You know what it's about."

"I do, though." Johnny looked completely helpless. "I love you, I swear, I don't - I don't know how to prove... it's not like I can do anything, can I?"

"No." Drew sat down again, beside him, taking his hand. Johnny didn't pull away, but he didn't return the grip either, didn't squeeze, almost like he didn't notice at all. "You don't love me. You can't love a person right now, Johnny, you just can't. You're not that person yet. I don't know - I should have seen - I just wanted to keep you so badly, because I love you so much, and - don't. Don't look at me like that with your huge eyes and that hopeful little tilt of your head, I can't. I'll always, always love you, because you're perfect, but I can't stay, because you just love to have someone around who loves you. You don't love me back."

"I do," Johnny said stubbornly. "I do, we've had almost three years, how can I not love you?"

Drew touched his neck, pulled him in for a kiss. One more, chaste, just a little touch of lips on lips. "You'll figure it out. Don't - don't make this anyone's fault, okay? It just wasn't meant to be. I would stay, really, I would, I wouldn't care one bit about love if you'd just have me around. But it's not making you a better person, having me around to keep you glued together. You'll see. You can be that by yourself."

"I need -"

"You don't need anyone but yourself, and maybe a proper adult who'll kick your ass whenever you're out of line, because you're spoiled as hell, but you're - you know. I'm so sorry. You'll get over this just fine."

Drew wasn't quite sure whether he would himself, but he thought, it wasn't so important, really, in the end. As long as Johnny managed to find himself and stand on his own two fucking feet without constantly having someone around who told him how precious and loved he was.

Drew had thought he was dependent, but he'd gotten it all wrong. He'd gotten it the wrong way around, it wasn't himself - Drew could have lived with that. No, it was Johnny - and Drew didn't know whether Johnny would, if he realized it. It might be too late then.

 

~*~


	3. rings of light on ice

They screwed up, once. No. No, that wasn't right. _Drew_ screwed up once. Just once, but it was one time too much and he felt so ashamed of himself afterwards, he couldn't do anything but wait until Johnny's breathing evened out, little hopeful smile on his face even in his sleep, and then tip-toe out, searching his clothes together and dressing before he threw a last look at the bed and fled.

They'd fucked.

No, that wasn't right either. It had felt more like... well.

The thought made his stomach flip. He'd promised himself he wouldn't, he'd _promised_. He'd told himself, known he'd see Johnny at Nats, of course he'd known, of course, there was no way to not meet, because it would be too much to ask to not coincidentally run into each other at a competition this huge.

But that hadn't been the thing that made him cave. It was so easy to fall for Johnny again, tears in his eyes and broken, like a butterfly, plucked wings, squirming on the ground, waiting for someone to step on it so it could finally die. Part of him said, 'you've done that', but that was the smallest part. Johnny had done it to himself. He should know better than to give so much to a single person. Especially Drew. Dependence always ended in shards.

Drew hurried back to his hotel room, cheeks burning - because this, this was his fault - and closed the door behind himself. His watch read three thirty in the morning. Everything was dark around him, and silent. He wondered whether crying would make him feel better. He decided not, laid down on his sheets - clean, unrumpled, just about new - and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to think of anything but Johnny, who would wake up to find Drew gone.

Drew hated his own convictions more than anything, at times.

 

~*~

 

The bitterest fact about the whole affair was that they'd talked normally, before the night that shouldn't have happened, before Johnny had lost his title. Before all the drama; after all, it was almost half a year now, the break-up, and Drew wasn't over it yet, not by a long shot, but he had himself under control. Johnny, he'd thought, might be okay. His heart had ached thinking that Johnny might actually be over him already, may be crushing on someone else, may be touching someone else, laughing with someone else.

Despite the ache, it had felt good, smiling as they'd shared stupid small talk, almost a bit like strangers, almost a bit like at the beginning.

He'd entertained the possibility that they might, maybe, work out as friends, if they weren't meant to be lovers.

Fool's hope, Drew chastised himself and stared at the screen of his cell phone, the text message Johnny had sent. It wasn't hysterical. There'd been enough crying going on at these Nationals already, maybe Johnny just didn't have any more to give. But the message was clear enough, disappointed and so in pain. Drew wanted to take Johnny in his arms and make it all better. Just... take him back.

Impossible now, he knew. Johnny was saying his good-byes. It was better that way.

Drew wasn't quite sure he believed himself, because it felt like he was in the middle of heart surgery, and someone had forgotten to give him the anesthetics.

 

~*~

 

There was one guy, that year, sometime in October, but Drew kissed him once and afterwards, he felt so guilty almost like he was cheating, which was ridiculous. Still, he could do nothing against the constriction of his guts in his belly. He told the poor guy that he couldn't and broke off the date and went home, got into his dad's liquor cabinet and got so drunk that he couldn't recall his own name anymore - or Johnny's.

The next morning, he remembered why he didn't drink.

He hurt his shoulder after that as well, which just fit right into the year of hell and then, everything just shattered.

"Shhhh," Julia mumbled, and stroked his hair as he sobbed into her shirt, so hard that he had to cough and splutter. She never flinched and he felt guilty again and some more sobs forced their way from deep within and then, the tears wouldn't stop and he cried so long and so hard that afterwards, he was light and empty.

"I'm so sorry," Julia said, rubbing her thumb over his cheek and kissing his forehead, hugging him close. "It's better, shhh, no, it's okay."

She'd never done that before, because they were best friends, but they weren't really close. She was so beautiful to him, always understanding, always listening. Perhaps, he would have felt like a real asshole if he hadn't been numb all over, feeling-less. He almost thought he might prefer it to any other feeling in the world except for when Johnny's hand was in his, fingers entwined, and smiling at him with adoration in his eyes.

"It's not better," he said hoarsely, and his throat hurt.

"D'you think it will be?" she hugged him close again.

"No," Drew muttered into her hair. "Nothing, ever." Because maybe, he wasn't quite as grown-up as he'd thought, and he felt like being melodramatic, and his fucking world was ending here, one year late. Johnny would never talk to him again, because Johnny was new and improved and confident now, with a new coach and a new life and fucking New Jersey and that was like, 200 miles away and Drew would have killed for that distance a year ago.

Now, there had been a bad break-up, an attempt at friendship which had ended in vulnerable, soothing love-making and more heart-break upon the realization that yes, it had been love-making, but that didn't mean anything.

It was a good thing he was still numb enough not to care, because he was fairly sure, in any other state, that might have hurt quite a lot.

 

~*~

 

Nats 2008, Drew kept his distance. There was no Julia anymore, after all, to keep him from killing himself by holding it all in, and another spectacle like last year was out of the question.

And then he realized he'd been worrying about a moot point, because seeing Johnny - well. Johnny was all right now. Johnny was standing on his own now, having taken Drew's advice and gotten himself an ass-kicking from Galina and Victor, and the support of his family and his friends, and that was finally enough.

"You want to go have a word?" Sarah asked, nudged, having caught him stare.

"No," Drew said voicelessly, cleared his throat and added, "No, you go ahead and take some pictures, get him to talk. He likes you."

"You think he wouldn't like you?" Sarah shook her head. "I bet you two would get on like a house on fire!"

"Yeah," Drew said, hollow inside. "Yeah, we might. Or he might end up punching me, and I don't want to take the risk."

"Ah." Sarah nodded. "History."

Drew shrugged. "Just let me know how it went."

 

~*~

 

Sarah was a good soul, she really was, but sometimes, Drew wanted to take that soul and wring it like a wet towel. As if she didn't know that Johnny wasn't busy enough with second place and the Exhibition program, a while after the press conference, she came, dragging him into Drew's room.

The awkwardness of that moment went down in the annals of history as the moment Johnny Weir had no snarky one-liner on the tip of his tongue. Quite the opposite, he paled a little. Drew understood completely. He felt faint himself.

"What's - what's going on..?" Drew asked Sarah, tongue heavy in his mouth. He didn't dare look Johnny in the eye, kept his gaze on her face. He couldn't even conjure up anger at her for going against his wishes.

"Johnny agreed to answer a few questions for our blog!" Sarah grinned. "You know, as a kind of special guest star. We could totally pull one of those things off, now that we're a regular act."

"We - uh. Don't you think it might have been good to clear that up with me beforehand?" Drew asked, still not glancing over even though he wanted to, badly, to see whether Johnny had himself back under control.

Johnny took the choice from him by speaking up. "It's okay," he mumbled, fidgeting. "I didn't - I'd better go now."

"No," Drew quickly said. "No, you don't have to. I didn't mean to imply I don't want you to do it. Please."

"Yeah?"

Drew met his eyes and felt himself flush under the careful scrutiny. Johnny was good these days at hiding what he felt. His face was blank, only his eyes glowing, strangely firm.

"Yeah," he said. "We'd be honored if you'd be our first." He bit his lip. "First guest blogger, or whatever."

Johnny smiled softly.

Drew felt like he might be forgiven. He didn't think he deserved it at all, but then, it figured Johnny would be adult enough now not to bear a grudge over a broken heart.

 

~*~

 

"I'm sorry about Julia," Johnny said in the end, after they were finished, Sarah gone to hunt down some more gossip. She was such an enthusiast. Maybe this really hadn't been any silly attempt to reconcile them from her side. She tended not to mingle in other people's affairs if she could help it, he knew that; that's why he liked her so much.

"I'm sorry about Julia too," he replied easily.

"Was it really a good break?"

"Oh yes, it was perfectly amiable. She... well, we just weren't able to do lifts anymore and I think it was also that we'd gotten out of sync lately." Drew pressed his lips together and told himself to stop babbling.

"I'd offer to help out, but I don't know any girls who'd - but I'll let you know if I hear something."

Drew found himself reddening. "Thanks. You really don't need to do that, I -"

"No, I want to. I... I can't imagine not being able to skate, and I know how important a stable partner is in pairs. I don't mind."

"So." Drew swallowed, nervous. "So does that mean you're not mad at me?"

"I wasn't ever mad at you." Johnny stared at his hands. "I was just - but then, you were a bit right, I guess. Maybe."

"I was?" Drew's stomach curled into itself in dread.

Johnny looked at him, really looked at him, and shrugged. "What you said - about only ever having the figure skater, and so rarely the boyfriend."

"Yeah. Sorry." Drew rubbed his hands on his pants, remembering that conversation a bit too clearly.

"No, don't be, it's true. But I think it doesn't work like that, people don't separate their personalities like that -"

"I can." Drew replied, a bit sharply, and then he winced and wished he could take it back, regretting the tone at once.

"Fine," Johnny replied casually. "I can't separate my personalities like that. I'm not either one or the other. I'm both, at all times, and that's just the way I am. And I get it now, I know why we didn't make it. Because if you can't accept that that's who I am, we couldn't have worked out, ever."

Drew knew Johnny had practiced that little scene, knew that it was learned by heart, but that didn't make it any less true. "I understand," he said, and he felt bad, because now he realized that his asking it of Johnny hadn't been a compromise - it had been a choice between a boyfriend and a job he loved above everything. And Johnny, well, Johnny hadn't chosen Drew, that much was certain. That didn't change the fact that it had been a very mean choice to ask Johnny to make.

"I never meant to hurt you so much," he finally said, and added, because he felt like he owed it, "or myself."

"I know," Johnny said, rising from his seat on the chair. "I'm over it." He waited till Drew got up as well, leaned over to hug him, kissed him chastely on the cheek, and Drew wanted so much to lift his fingers and run them over his neck, to kiss back, his lips, wanted so much to just tip them over right here and feel Johnny again, on his whole body.

He didn't, not any of it, and Johnny left, not looking back, and Drew realized he was.

 

~*~

End

 

 _~~ written in February 2008_


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